


A List of Problems and Concerns

by classics_above_classics



Series: Alice Dorothy and Stories Set Elsewhere [5]
Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: Changelings, Gen, I Mean It's Definitely Magic But Connor's Not Sure, Maybe Magic Maybe Mundane, Non-binary character, The Masquerade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 02:33:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19039393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/classics_above_classics/pseuds/classics_above_classics
Summary: Connor's got their suspicions about the student in their dorm.(They'll have more than that to worry about soon.)





	A List of Problems and Concerns

**Author's Note:**

> Connor's P.O.V. this time! I actually had a lot of fun writing them. They're just really dry and snarky in comparison to Alice D. and it's pleasant. D. is much easier for me to write, really, but a little challenge is fun, too!

Connor isn’t sure what to think of the new kid.

Ne is a first-year too, of course, if one tall and tired enough to look a few years older, but there’s something off about nem. On their first night together, ne fixed the weird salt line when ne thought they were asleep, and in the morning they found a large bowl that smelled and still held traces of cream. Ne never says thank you, gritting nir teeth every time they do. Ne salts the windows and never leaves the hallway at night and looks a little sicker every time ne steps outside the room. Ne avoids the cafeteria and avoids the music majors and always, always eats lunch in the café.

Once, only once, Connor catches nem with a long skein of yarn, weaving a long braided cord in the colours of the trans flag and talking at it. Ne talks about safety and protection and comfort like the threads are going to hear it. The next day, ne hangs the long cord like a banner above the door, and when they ask ne says something about personal beliefs and goes back to reading about the problems with Freudian psychology.

There are people on campus who call nem weird things, things that sound more than a little insulting and things that sound more than a little fearful. _Lost One_ , some of the students say, like that girl with cat-eyed glasses and that boy with red hair. _Debt-Breaker_ , a few more whisper incredulously, with grateful, relieved glances in the wake of nir path. _Lyric-Weaver’s_ , the older ones snap, casting sharp, pointed glares at something or someone far off into the distance. D. doesn’t seem to know, really. D. probably also doesn’t know of the way the last group of students, the ones who say ne is Lyric-Weaver’s girl, always seem to watch nem like ne is going to tear out their throats.

They’re pretty sure the new kid’s insane.

Still, ne isn’t that far gone yet, so they let nem be. They’ve had worse roommates.

Alice Dorothy, in all, is a plain kind of person. Ne likes being nice for the sake of it and doesn’t seem to understand what being exciting is. Connor’s seen nem go to sleep at ten thirty and wake up at six thirty, which is something only an absolute tool does on weekends in college. Ne is genuinely interested in doing nir homework and cleans nir glasses every five minutes and gets the urge to hurl when Connor plays EDM on big speakers because it upsets nir ridiculous constitution. If this was any other school, ne would have faded into the background, only to be remembered when someone needed the answer to a question.

This, however, was Elsewhere University. So shit got weird _real_ quick.

⋈

It starts the morning after ne arrives, when Connor wakes up to find nir half of the room impeccably clean.

They don’t get it. They absolutely do not get it. Alice Dorothy fell asleep at around eleven, still with damp hair from nir shower and with things still in nir bags. Connor fell asleep at about one, all their tools tucked away and Wally still making the rounds on the floor. Connor wakes up at five, feeling the urgent need to go to the bathroom.

And D.’s side of the room is perfectly arranged.

Connor blinks, once, twice, and then rubs their eyes just in case they’re hallucinating and need to fix that. They’re not hallucinating. The closet door is still half-open, as if someone had forgotten to close it or been caught off-guard by the robotics major’s awakening, and they can see clothes that look like they belong to D. all hung up neatly and in order. The boxes D. had moved from nir bed have all been moved to Connor’s side of the room, leaving the floor empty. Said floor also looks as if it has been swept. And mopped. And waxed, fuck, the tiles are almost shiny. Nir bags have been arranged discreetly on one of the upper shelves, a few books ne must have brought in stacked perfectly beside them. And, to top it all off, the shelf’s been re-painted, now a pleasant, welcoming cream.

Connor turns, looking at their side of the room. It’s exactly as they left it.

The bowl of cream D. had left at the door is empty.

What the fuck?

This… is bullshit. This whole thing has to be bullshit. Right?

Connor’s not too sure anymore.

They steel themselves, awkwardly making their way to the shared bathroom. It’s on D.’s side of the room, so they’re more than a little scared of what they’ll find in it. They reach for the doorknob and turn it, pushing the door open all at once.

The whole place is sparkling.

Yeah, that’s it. Something is wrong. Something has to be wrong. It would be impossible to deep-clean the whole bathroom in three days, much less barely four hours. It would be impossible to clean up every questionable stain, to air it out and make the whole thing smell as fresh as mint leaves. It would be impossible to replace the breaks in the floor tiles, to scrub clean the toilet and scourge the sink.

D.’s apparently done it anyway.

But ne couldn’t have. There was no way. Connor looks back at nem, still curled up and asleep on nir rickety bed. Ne couldn’t have done this in four hours. Considering that ne’s still asleep, ne _didn’t_.

So what did?

Connor’s afraid to think that they don’t know.

⋈

It continues a few weeks later, in Connor’s study hall period, by a long, morbid list the school always has hung up. Or, rather, two lists.

The Missing List and the Dead List.

Connor has no goddamn idea why anyone thought it would be a good idea to hang up stuff like this, to write down students’ safenames on these two unpleasant scrolls and pretend they’re all gone. They’ve seen a lot of the students whose names were on both lists still alive and active, after all. Jane Grey from the Missing list was in their robotics class until a week and a half back, when she’d abruptly quit and moved to the French major. King from the Dead list still came to the theatre club every week, always in that stupid crown. Ygritte from the Dead list might as well have been dead in the first place, with how unnoticeable she’d been before her name showed up, but she’d made a name for herself harassing some of the art majors, and she was still very much alive.

So yeah, Connor doesn’t get it. They’re pretty sure it’s just some stupid prank, yeah, but they really don’t get it.

They also don’t get the way D. freezes up next to them when they pass the list, nir eyes locking on a single name.

“Scared, Potter?” they joke lightly, looking up to read whatever name got nem in such a panic. Lento? That’s a food, right? “Come on, you know this thing is just a joke. Pretty sure it’s just whatever weird version of hazing this college has. Leave it be.”

“But- Lento-”

“D., come on, what’s wrong- ?”

D. turns, dashing off into the crowd without a second thought. Connor yelps, reaching out for their roommate before they can think, but ne’s a little too fast and they can’t quite reach them. They grit their teeth and start running. Whatever this is, it can’t be good. Ne looked _terrified_.

It takes about a solid ten minutes of running before Connor catches up to nem. D.’s in the cafeteria- the stupid, stupid psych student looks like ne’s about to have a heart attack- staring at a single, lonely table near the middle.

Connor sort of recognizes that table. Sometimes, they’ve been to the cafeteria during study hall, when they wanted a snack or needed a bigger table for whatever reason. They’ve seen D. there at that table before, always with the same girl. They wonder if she’s the reason D. came running.

“It can’t be,” D. says incredulously, as if ne doesn’t realize how melodramatic ne sounds when ne talks like that. “That name has to have been added a few weeks ago, at least. But she’s still- she’s still-”

“Hey, D., maybe calm down a bit, yeah?” Connor whacks nem lightly, like they’ve gotten used to doing in the few weeks they’ve known nem. “The Missing List’s just a weird joke. Your girlfriend isn’t dead or anything.”

“She’s _not_ my girlfriend,” D. snaps, something tight and pained and angry burning in nir voice. Connor pulls their hand away quickly. Whatever memories they’d dragged up, they weren’t good ones. “She was my roommate. And that’s not her.”

“What do you mean?” The girl at the table looked exactly like the girl D. used to sit with. Yeah, she’d gotten rid of a lot of the jewellery, but aside from that she was clearly the same girl. Was this some kind of weird “you’re not the person I used to know” thing?

“Plastic,” D. notes matter-of-factly, nodding towards the plastic fork and spoon she’s using to eat. It makes no sense. “No salt. No iron. No precautions.”

“You’re being creepy.”

“I need to go.” Connor’s crazy, nauseous-looking roommate turns on nir heel, making a beeline for, presumably, that hat-wearing possibly-a-teacher’s office. Connor doesn’t follow.

_Lyric-Weaver’s girl_ , some of the older students sometimes call D., casting sharp, pointed glares at something or someone far off into the distance. Connor looks back at the tall, pretty girl, and they wonder if she’s Lyric-Weaver. She probably is.

⋈

It concludes with D. e-mailing nir professors, requesting that they send nem notes tomorrow in event of nir absence. Sickness is described as the possible reason. Connor has no idea what’s going on.

“What are you doing?” they ask faintly, because this is their _roommate_ , their goody-two-shoes idiot of a roommate, planning an absence from class. Ne looks like ne would rather eat a stapler than plan an absence from class. And with sickness as an excuse? D. looks about as healthy as ne usually is. “Are you going to burn down that girl’s dorm room or something?”

“I want to know what happened to her,” D. answers, which doesn’t actually explain anything. “She’s too smart to just have this _happen_ to her. She has to have arranged it.”

“To have arranged _what_?!”

“Her Taking.” They can hear the capitalization in the word. D. shuts nir laptop, opening one of the desk drawers and pulling out an iron bracelet and a small cluster of nails. After a moment’s hesitation, ne takes out a clicker, clicking the tiny thing exactly four times. It seems ritualistic, in a way. Personal and protective. Connor’s not quite sure they should be seeing it. “I want to make sure it wasn’t a Deal made to hurt someone. I want to make sure it won’t hurt _her_.”

“What did she do, sell a law student her soul or something?” Despite the sarcasm, Connor’s actually starting to feel a little worried. Whoever Lento is, it sounds like she’s gotten into some bad shit.

“It’s possible. I don’t know who she’d have sold it to, but it could be a law student.” D.’s gripping the clicker tightly, nir fingers still curled around it even as ne shoves it into nir pocket. “I need to find Michael. Or Johnny. They should be able to help.”

“Who are they? Could they hurt you?” Connor asks. “Should I come with you?”

“What? You want to come with me?” D. looks up, meeting their eyes. Ne doesn’t look calculating, ne doesn’t look curious, just a little confused and more than a little stressed. “You could get hurt. You don’t… You aren’t involved. You aren’t even in the know. You probably still think Elsewhere is just a mundane school.”

“And Elsewhere… _isn’t_?”

Their roommate sighs. “You’re free to come. Just… be careful. You have to be.”

“I get it.” Whatever’s going on, something dangerous is out there. Something they have to watch out for. “Is there anything I need to do before we go?”

“Turn your socks on inside out. Or your underwear. Or put on a coat and turn that. Or just wear anything backwards, really.” D. demonstrates, tugging on a pair of socks the wrong way around. “Walk fast. It’s best that we make it within the hour. I don’t know if the protection still stands, but I’ll stay within it anyway.”

“Alright,” Connor agrees, taking a jacket they’d discarded on their bed and wearing it backwards. “Should we be leaving?”

D. looks up at the wall clock they’d just installed, watching the second hand tick forward with the minute. Three, two, one.

Tick.

“Eight o’clock,” D. sighs, getting up. “Let’s go.”


End file.
